Self-talk good for pre-schoolers

Researchers in the United States have
found that private talk is very common
and perfectly normal among pre-school
children, and it helps them
communicate better with the outside
world.

The study, led by Adam Winsler, an
associate professor of psychology at
George Mason University, the United
States, has shown that that pre-schoolers
perform better while doing their tasks
when they talk to themselves out loud
(either spontaneously or when told to
do so by an adult) than when they are
silent.

Adam Winsler wrote in the study,
published in the Early Childhood
Research Quarterly, the journal of
the National Association for the
Education of Young Children, the
United States: “This is when language
comes inside. As these two
communication processes merge,
children use private speech in the
transition period. It’s a critical
period for children, and defines us as
human beings.”

The researchers, who came to this
conclusion after analyzing a group of
pre-school children aged 5, found that
78% of the kids performed either the
same or better on motor task when
speaking to themselves than when they
were silent.

In the study, titled Should I let them
talk? Private Speech and Task
Performance Among Pre-school Children
with and without Behavior Problems,
the researchers also came across the
fact that children with behavioral
problems – like attention deficit
hyperactivity disorder – are inclined
to talk to themselves more often than
children without signs of behavioral
problems.

“Young children,” Professor Winsler
writes, “often talk to themselves as
they go about their daily activities,
and parents and teachers should not
think of this as weird or bad. On the
contrary, they should listen to the
private speech of kids. It’s a
fantastic window into the minds of
children.”

Professor Winsler, who also conducted
the study in children with autism,
noticed that high-functioning autistic
children talk to themselves often and
in the same ways that non-autistic
children do. Talking aloud improved
autistic children’s performance on
tasks.

He wrote in the Journal of Autism
and Developmental Disabilities,
published from the United States and
covering severe psychopathologies in
childhood, including autism and
childhood schizophrenia, “Children
with autism have problems with their
external social speech, so
psychologists assumed that their
private speech would also be impaired.
But this study shows that it is not
the case – that autistic children use
their private speech very effectively
as a tool to help them with tasks.”